12:00a.m. 13th May 2008

| By Jane Gardner

A strong majority of voters want the baby bonus and other family payments withdrawn from high income earners, a poll has found.

The Australian newspaper Newspoll revealed 65% supported means testing the baby bonus for households that earn over $70,000 a year.

The result was particularly surprising because $70,000 is well below the threshold the Federal Government has debated.

Bli-Bli mother Chenoa Barnes, who is six-weeks pregnant with her second child, said it would be ludicrous to deny anyone the baby bonus.

“I definitely don’t think the baby bonus should be means tested,” she said.

“They’re basically saying, are you poor enough to have children? If you’re rich enough, don’t worry about having children then.”

“It takes so much time and money to have children; we don’t need the ridiculous stuff of means testing.”

Ms Barnes will get the increased baby bonus of $5000 when she gives birth in January.

She said the last payment, of $4000, was a godsend.

“We put some of it on our mortgage, fixed the car, we went away for the weekend and put some away for the baby,” she said.

They also used the money to pay for a midwife.

The Newspoll, published in The Australian, also found 64% want a means test applied to the Family Tax Benefit, which is paid to stay-at-home mothers regardless of their income. A smaller majority of voters - 52%- would also prefer their promised income tax cuts were ditched to avoid another interest rate rise.

All groups - including families with children, and even most Coalition supporters - were in favour of means tests for family payments.

Wayne Swan has repeatedly ruled out an attack on middle-class welfare if that means denying, or reducing, payments to the so-called working families on the middle rungs of the income ladder.

Kevin Rudd argued last week that millionaires did not need the baby bonus but Mr Turnbull, the Opposition Treasury spokesman, yesterday accused Labor of playing the politics of envy.

He said means-testing the baby bonus risked costing taxpayers more than it saved because of the administrative complexity involved.